This invention relates generally to stents for holding in situ vascular grafts and, more specifically, to such stents and a method using such stents for repairing diseased or damaged sections of a vessel.
A common health problem is diseased or damaged blood vessels which may weaken, develop into an aneurysm, and rupture. Conventional techniques for the repair of damaged or diseased sections of vessels include invasive surgery to expose to a surgeon the section of the artery to be repaired. The weakened section is resected and replaced either by a section of healthy vessel removed from a remote site of the patient's vascular system or by a tubular synthetic graft. Either graft is sutured into place. This prior art technique is traumatic to the patient, frequently requires major surgery, and may be hazardous or impossible to perform if, as is not infrequent, the health of the patient is poor.
A large number of patient admissions and procedures performed each year are due to aneurysms of the aorta that are distal of the renal arteries, i.e., infra-renal abdominal aortic aneurysms. In addition to the resection and replacement procedure, aortic aneurysms are currently repaired by the axillobifemoral bypass method, which method also requires major, invasive, and risky surgery. Recently, a promising new apparatus and procedure for the repair of aortic aneurysms was described in U.S. Pat. No 4,577,631. This procedure is accomplished via a small incision in a femoral artery of the patient and relies on an occlusion catheter to block the arterial flow of blood through the aneurysm site during adhesion of a tubular synthetic graft over the diseased or damaged section of the aorta.